Shanxi Province

For my first site visit in China for work, I had the opportunity to visit a children's AIDS hospital in Linfen in Shanxi Province with our Global Peds Director, who was in China for a visit, and the China Peds Manager. Shanxi is a major mining region and its biggest export is coal, followed by vinegar. The mines in the area has caused heavy pollution. As a result, Linfen has the dubious honor of being the most polluted city in China. Linfen, Taiyuan (the capital where we flew to) and Pingyao (where I visited an ancient Ming-dynasty city) all seem constantly cloaked in fog, except its not innocuous fog blanketing those cities, it's pollution. During the 3-hour drive from Taiyuan to Linfen, we passed by multiple quarries. Dug deep into the ground, they looked like massive green and yellow mountains with steps on the side. They are actually quite a sight to behold. We saw coal being hauled in small trucks everywhere.

According to the Global Peds Director, the hospital we visited is one of the nicest children's HIV/AIDS she has visited. In addition to medical facilities for the patients, there is an elementary school. Through a donation they received, they were able to purchase instruments for the children, and we caught them during music class. They performed a dance and played their instruments for us. It was absolutely adorable. There are also dorm rooms for the children and a vegetable and flower garden. They are also building apartment-like facilities for the patient's relatives to stay in when they visit. The whole thing was very well-thought out. The whole facility only serves a handful of patients at the moment, but they are thinking of expanding it to serve the entire community.

Besides coal mines, Shanxi is famous for its vinegar and its noodles. They make over 100 different kinds of noodles here. During lunch post-site visit, we tried 8 different kinds of noodles, including cat's ear (a pasta-like noodle shaped like cat's ear) that is a Shanxi specialty. My favorites include a sauteed noodle with vegetable called "knife sliced noodle" and a noodle that was shaped like a shell and cooked with a bit of vegetable and shrimp. Knife sliced noodle is a noodle made by using a knife to slice thin slivers from a big chunk of dough. We added a bit of vinegar to all the noodles we tried. The people of Shanxi are extremely proud of their vinegar and insist that everything tastes better with it. One little boy I met a couple of weeks ago, whose father was from Shanxi province originally told me that he didn't want to visit America because the food would be bad since there would be no vinegar. I found that really cute and funny. Trying to explain that we do have vinegar in America did not really work. In addition to eating just about everything with their vinegar, the women also insist that it does wonders for your skin (even the doctor told us that!). I bought some back to Beijing with me (but just to use with food, not for any type of beauty treatment).

Rather than coming straight back to Beijing, I took the opportunity to stay in Shanxi for an extra day to visit Pingyao. Pingyao is an interesting mix of old and new. Pingyao contains a city within a city. The ancient city of Pingyao, which is completely surrounded by an intact Ming-dynasty wall (supposedly the last remaining in China), is a charming little area with hundreds of old buildings featuring Ming-dyansty era architecture complete with courtyards located inside Pingyao - a relatively modern city. It feels like you have stepped straight into the past (except for the throngs of tourists). Even my hotel had a small but beautiful courtyard and my room featured a Ming-style bed, which looks like a platform with bedding on top of it. Most of the city is extremely well-preserved, but some of the less touristy parts are crumbling. Through the doorways of some houses and in the smaller alleys less frequented, you can see buildings that are falling apart, although some are being renovated.

Pingyao used to be a financial center and a thriving merchant town in the Ming and Qing dynasties. I visited several old banks and former residences of wealthy financiers, as well as a few temples. Many of the banks and residences are like mini-cities inside. Some have hundreds of rooms surrounding several courtyards, all enclosed within its own set of walls on the outside. The architecture of the buildings were all pretty similar, so it felt repetitive after a while, although they were all quite beautiful. One of the most interesting complex was the ancient government buildings. A vast maze of courtyards and rooms, it featured a cool photography exhibit on some of its walls.

The modes of transporation in Pingyao was really varied. There were donkey carts, bicycles, mopeds, big golf-cart like things serving as taxis, tricycles, trucks with only three wheels, cars, etc. I rented a bicycle early this morning and biked to Shuanglin Temple, approximately 7km from the ancient city. Every time I ride a bike, I still feel a sense of trepidation because I'm terrible at it, and I hate riding on streets congested with vehicles of all kinds coming at you from every direction. I was relieved when I found it. There were few visitors when I arrived but there were dozens of art students from Xian making clay sculptures. Shuanglin Temple is known for its clay sculptures but time has really washed out the colors of the scultpures and most of them were enclosed behind a cage-like barrier, which really detracted from the experience. While I was there, a monk started talking to me and decided to tell me my fortune. He claims I will have an unhappy marriage. Talk about incentive to stay single. Most of the stuff he said about my past were completely off (was not sick last September and no one in my family was sick either) and I am not really superstitious so I'll let the comment slide.

I stopped by the Qiao Family Courtyard House, the site where Zhang Zimou's film Raise the Red Lantern was filmed, on the way back to Taiyuan. The guy who built it was a wealthy merchant in the Ming or Qing Dynasty. I remember watching the movie back in high school and thinking that the buildings were gorgeous so I was excited to see the place in person. To get there, I had my first China long-distance bus experience. There was no schedule, which was kind of frustrating - the buses leave only when they are full - so I ended up wasting almost an hour sitting on the bus. When I finally made it there, it was like a zoo. There were requisite red lanterns hung all throughout the main corridor of the house as I had expected, but there were also dozens of tour groups packing the place, following tour guides holding flags and talking into microphones or megaphones. There were masses of people everywhere. It was total chaos. The place is big, but not that big so I quickly walked around and got out of there.

Getting back to Taiyuan from there was my sketchy bus experience #2 in China. I had to go across the street and flag a bus down. The bus was dirty and gross but had no choice at that point. I managed to make it back to Taiyuan without any major problems and am back in Beijing now. Here for a day and then I'm off for 3 weeks! Visiting Guangxi, Anhui, Yunnan and Sichuan provinces for work, and then going to Hubei (to see the Three Gorges) and Chongqing for October holidays. Am really excited.

Settling into Life in Beijing

Prior to moving to Beijing, I figured I'd be working a lot less and therefore have a ton more free time to do things like read, learn Chinese, etc. I figured I'd go out on the weekends, but not so much during the week. However, since arriving, I've been out just about every night of the week. Between quiz nights on Tuesday nights and casual dinners and drinks with friends, it feels like I haven't had a moment of free time. I've been slowly checking out the restaurant scene in Beijing. Tried tons of Chinese restaurants for various provinces, including Gansu, Xinjiang and Sichuan. At the Gansu (a province in Chinese's northwest region), I tried "lamb's back" which was lamb's back cooked in a way similar to Peking Duck, with crispy skin and some meat you wrap with sauce and vegetables in a thin flour pancake, and bones that they cut into pieces to look like ribs. I even tried camel for the first time. At first, I didn't realize it was camel - it seriously could have been beef. Definitely the most unusual things I've tried so far.



Xinjiang province (really want to visit!) is another province in the northwest that is mostly occupied by the Muslim Uyghur minority as opposed to Han Chinese. The cuisine there is heavy on lamb, a type of bread called naan (but nothing like Indian naan) and noodles in a tomato-based broth with vegetables that reminds me of minestrone soup. The noodels are made by hand and has a thicker, chewier texture that is really delicious. I'm looking forward to visiting this region as either part of the job or for fun. It will be like visiting a foreign country.

Sichuan cuisine is popular and heavy on chilies. I still really can't tell the difference between the cuisines of the Han Chinese provinces, but Sichuan is easy to recognize since it is very spicy. There is a dish called Chicken with Chilies that is served to you on a huge plate covered with chilies. There's so little chicken in it that you really have to search hard to find a piece, but it looks really impressive. I find it rather pointless. I think Sichuan cuisine is okay.

Other foods I've tried here include pizza (not so great - something just not right about the dough and the cheese), American (terrible), Indian (not bad) and Thai (really good). Think I'm going to stick to Asian cuisines. One of my favorite restaurants so far is a vegetarian restaurant called Pure Lotus. The restaurant is so serene and beautifully decorated, and the food so simple yet delicious that the entire dining experience is bliss. I can't even think of a similar restaurant n NYC. The service here is also really good, which says a lot in Beijing since attentive service is almost non-existent. I'm usually just glad when the servers don't yell at me.

One of the people I've met here works for That's BJ, a free monthly magazine similar to Times Out or New York magazine. He says that I can do restaurant reviews for them in the future, which will be awesome. Looking forward to that.

The nightlife in Beijing I've experienced so far is definitely very expat oriented. Been to a couple of chill expat hangouts such as The Tree and Rickshaw. People are friendly and everyone seems to be a friend of a friend. I ended up going to the Summer Palace with a guy who was visiting Beijing for 10 days. He knew a friend who knew someone in Beijing who happened to have brought him to Rickshaw one night. Funny how things work out here. There are also modern, trendy bars with expensive drinks like Alfa. It's got couches and pillows and curtains that create small pockets of privacy inside a huge restaurant/bar. One of my favorite little bars so far is a tiny place located in an alley behind Gulou (the Drum Tower). It's got a rooftop area that is really nice.

I've also had the opportunity to go to a club here called Suzie Wong. The guys here claim that it's awesome, one of the few places which is classy, where the girls know how to dance and don't giggle. The truth is the place was rather boring with crappy music, and girls that did not impress. I felt like I was going to drown in smoke since smoking is allowed everywhere unfortunately. I think that when class = girls don't giggle, your standards have just sunk way too low.

And after being in Beijing for a few weeks, I've come to the conclusion that half of Beijing (including most of the places you want to go to be it restaurant or bar) is located in an alley behind something. Instructions like go around Gulou to the dark alley and walk down the alley until you see this bar, is not uncommon. It makes finding anything very difficult. I usually call the restaurant or bar in the cab and hand the phone over to the cab driver.

Besides eating and drinking, I have been taking time to see the local Beijing sites as well. The Summer Palace, which is a bit far from the center of the city in the northwest part of Beijing, is beautiful. It's very renovated, and as a result, the buildings are in great conditions and the colors on the various buildings are vibrant and pretty. The lake and grounds are pretty to walk around. However, there are so many visitors that it feels like a zoo. We climbed to the top of the main building and then went down to this street with little shops. The emperor and his many women used to go there to pretend to be regular people shopping. It feels straight out of Disney World, only it's a cute rendition of an old Chinese street.

The Temple of Heaven, which I visited after finishing up work one day, was filled with tour groups of Chinese and Korean tourists, but still felt a lot less hectic and crowded than the Summer Palace. The temple, with it's beautiful cobalt blue roof set against the clear blue sky (well, as clear as the sky in a a polluted city like Beijing can be) is absolutely stunning and magnificent. I seriously think it is one of the prettiest structures in Beijing. It is inside a big park with perfectly straight rows of old cypress and juniper trees. The grounds are extensive and there are many quiet corners to escape to, which explains why many local Beijing people just come for walks in the park.

Am in Shanxi province right now. Will write a post about my experiences here visiting the Children's AIDS hospital in Linfen (the most polluted city in China) and the ancient city of Pingyao when I get the chance.

Apartment Hunting in Beijing

After spending a week looking at dozens of apartments, my roommates and I settled on a large 3BR apartment in the MOMA at Dongzhimen. A big apartment complex whose occupants are reportedly 70% foreign, it's modern amenities is a sharp contrast to it's random location in a hutong in Beijing. It is an interesting blend of new and modern with old and traditional that serves as a reminder that I'm actually in Beijing. But rather ironic that I moved all the way to Beijing from NYC, and ended up living in a place called the MOMA. I definitely miss home!

There are a few major differences between apartment hunting here versus in New York City. Here, many of the real estate agents/brokers you use do not have their own private listings - it seems to be a shared thing. Thus, real estate agents compete with one another for business and many of them will try to show you the same apartments. In addition, the landlord is the one who ends up paying the fee (equivalent to one month's rent), not the renter, which is really nice. Apartments also come furnished. You can even request additional furniture and ask the landlord to change some of the furniture. All of this is negotiated prior to signing a lease. As a result, it took us 5 hours of negotiations and discussions before we were able to finalize our lease agreement and get the document signed. Ultimately, these differences make life as a renter so much easier in Beijing. The agents do much of the work, the landlord pays them and supplies you with furniture - all you have to do is show up. The only thing that's rather annoying is the fact that it is customary to pay a 1 month deposit and 3 months of rent upon signing. Good thing I have a savings account.

I spent last Saturday furniture shopping with my new landlord and one of my new roomates. We picked a couch and selected the fabrics to use. The couch, made to our specification, was delivered a few days later. Since we ordered several different things from different vendors, it has been a frustrating experience waiting for the deliveries. In China, punctuality does not seem to be important. In fact, the whole notion of time is somewhat disregarded. An appointment scheduled for 8am might very well become 6am without a warning and 7pm can become 2pm. Slowly, as furniture is delivered and replaced, the apartment is coming together. Can't wait until it's all set up.

Perhaps one of the most bewildering things as a renter is how electricity, gas and phone bills are paid. I don't really think people use personal checks and people don't receive bills in the mail either. Instead, you have to add value to a smart card by paying in advance at a bank and then sticking it into the meter to add credit it with units of electricity and gas. It's somewhat of a hassle since the lines at the bank are always a couple of hours long (when I went to set up my account, there were 119 people ahead of me according to the machine) but you can do it at some special automated machines too. It's an amazing business model for the electric, gas and phone companies. None of them will have cash flow problems since they are pre-paid, before their service is utilized. Even cell phones are pre-paid. You buy credit and then charge up your phone.

All foreign residents have to register themselves at the police station. I guess the Chinese government must really want to keep tabs on us. Need to do that this weekend.

Qingdao, Warm Beer and Other Weird Asian Quirks

If you've ever wondered whether there is a place in China where there were no bikes, the answer is yes. Although the new sections of the Qingdao is flat, most of the older (and more charming) parts of the city are on the hilly parts of town, making biking impossible. Thus, bikes are not a mode of transportation here and traffic flows a lot more smoothly. Surprisingly, given the ubiquity of mopeds and motorbikes in Vietnam and Taiwan, there are very few in Beijing and Qingdao (the only 2 places in China I've been to so far). If I had a license, I would totally get a Vespa to get around. Traffic is horrendous in Beijing.

We visited Laoshan, a mountain range about an hour's drive outside Qingdao, where the mineral water (supposedly the purest water in China) for Qingdao beer is sourced. Some local guy convinced us that he could help us bypass the ticket booth and led us through a really sketchy trail up part of the mountain that got us on the main path. We had to crawl through a section of cut-open barb-wired fence. Yes, it did occur to me several times that it was a very dumb idea. Once we got on the main path, we climbed up hundreds of steps to get us up to the top of the mountain where we crawled through the dark Mitian cave (we didn't believe the vendors that were trying to sell us flashlights). It was a hot and sweaty endeavour, but the views from the top of the mountain are incredible, making it worthwhile. There were other things on the mountain but we skipped it since we were starving. We took a chair lift down the mountain.

Post-lunch, we visited the Tsingdao brewery and museum, where we had the opportunity to try several kinds of freshly brewed Tsingdao beers. There was this little house you could go into (called the "Beer House") that was so slanted that even though I was not drunk, I felt drunk and disoriented. It was a really bizarre feeling. And I met a guy, who asked me where I was from. He was surprised that I spoke perfect English. When I told him I was from New York, his response was, "but you look Asian." I could not believe it. He was from South Carolina. I'll leave it at that.

The first time I was served warm beer in Qingdao, I just figured maybe they ran out of cold beer. But after I was repeated served warm beer, I asked someone about it. Apparently the Chinese believe that drinking things that are too cold is bad for the body. They drink warm beer, warm milk, etc. Not a huge fan of beer to begin with and warm beer does not help. It tastes terrible. Oh, and the term "white wine" refers to hard liquor such as vodka. Someone asked me if I liked Qingdao's red wine, which I had tried earlier, and I told him it tasted great but I liked white wine better. He almost fell out of his chair. Apparently you have to specify white "grape" wine if you mean white wine.

On the subject of weird alcohol drinking habits, in Taiwan, people drink red wine with ice cubes. They think it tastes too thick without ice and they prefer to drink it cold. One of my cousins, who is living in Paris, had brought back wine from France... the French would have flipped out if they saw what the Taiwanese were doing to their red wine. In China, they drink red wine without ice, but they literally only pour a taste each time. The tradition is to "ganbei" when you toast someone, which means "dry glass," so they just pour very little each time since you are supposed to finish drinking until your glass is empty when they say "ganbei" and they say "ganbei" a lot.

Tap water is not safe to drink in Beijing (although the water people claim that water that comes out of the plant is drinkable, it's the old pipes that the water pass through that makes it unsafe to drink straight from the tap), making it necessary to buy bottled water. I know that people say that they make fake everything in China, but it shocked me to find out that there's fake water. I got a bottle that tasted funny, and the friend I was with told me to stop drinking it since he thought there was something wrong with it too. Makes me rather paranoid.

First Week in Beijing

My first week in Beijing was filled with real estate agents. I was originally promised two weeks in a hotel to give me time to find an apartment, but they cut that down to one. After that, I would have to move into a temporary apartment they have rented for their interns (who have not arrived yet). While the apartment itself is fine, the building is located in a dark, dingy old Chinese building on the 6th floor of a 6-story walk-up. That was incentive for me to try and find an apartment - asap.

The apartments near Dongzhimen and Sanlitun (the area close to work) fall into 2 categories - luxury apartment complexes complete with spas, grocery stores, gyms, pools and clubhouses or old Chinese buildings from the Mao era - nothing really in the middle. After looking at a couple of older apartments, I decided to splurge on a nice apartment (which is still only about $400-$500 a month!). I looked at over 20 apartments over the course of 5 days and managed to get a 3BR apartment in the MOMA with a couple of friends. There are so many buildings in Beijing that are named after New York City buildings and neighborhoods. There's the MOMA, Central Park and Upper East Side among others. There's also the Twin Towers and someone said the Empire State Building is going up too. It's sort of a funny reminder of home. The nice thing about apartments in Beijing is that they come furnished, and landlords will replace furniture, within reason. Hopefully the furniture that I've requested will come soon so I can move into my new place!

Although everyone in China speaks Mandarin, the plethora of accents you can hear in Beijing alone is hugely variable. Sometimes, it is hard to understand what others are saying, even though we are speaking the same dialect. There are also many words that are just different here in China. The words for things like spoon, pineapple, bicycle and cabbage are completely different, which has been confusing. Furthermore, I am practically illiterate since I can't read simplified characters. Sometimes, I wonder how I'm going to survive in this country for a year!

Olympic madness continues unabated here. Besides experimenting with the weather and "rain-making" technology to thwart rain during the Olympics, the Chinese government is also trying to figure out how to make the two flowers most associated with China, the chrysanthamum and the lotus flower, bloom next August. Neither flower naturally bloom during that month. The government's goal of pulling off a perfect Olympic is also accompanied with a "service with a smile" campaign. While they can attempt to make rain or stop rain, and make flowers bloom, I am not certain they can ever convince some of the surly, rude and inattentive Chinese locals servicepeople from waiters to cab drivers to be nice and crack a smile. I feel lucky to get acknowledged with an annoyed snort or sound when requesting anything.

I'm in Qingdao (a part of Shandong Province) right now for China's annual National Pediatric AIDS Conference. Qingdao is a beautiful city surrounded by mountains and oceans and several lovely beaches. It will be the site of the rowing sports during the Olympics. I actually just missed the regatta held here by a couple of days. Once a German controlled town, there is a charming mix of German-influenced architecture and tall modern buildings that gives Qingdao its uniqueness. In the historic area of town, even new buildings must be built with red-tiled roofs. The people here are proud of how the pretty the contrast of their red rooftops look against the green trees that dot the hills inside the city. Our local guide (courtesy of Yao's dad) took us to Huashi Lou, a castle-like villa perched on the side of the cliffs right over the water. There were dozens of bridal couples here taking their bridal pictures. While the scenery is gorgeous, it must have been a miserable experience for them given the sweltering heat.

Qingdao's German history is also the reason why this city is know for it's Tsingdao beer. I made it to Qingdao just in time to enjoy the last day of their Tsingdao International Beer Festival. Must say it is the first time I've seen local Chinese dance on tables. Their equivalent of vodka in water bottles must have been beer in plastic bags. I saw some of them pour beer into glasses from plastic bags. The men were also unabashed about walking around with naked potbellies. They either roll their shirts up above their bellies, or take their shirts off and sling it over their shoulders. Unsurprisingly, the naked potbellies are also a target of the Chinese government's preparation for the Olympics. There are commercials preaching proper etiquette for next year's big event, which includes keeping your shirt on, and covering your belly.

Government Controls in China

Censorship in the media is clear from the newspaper, which reports mostly innocuous, mundane stories. Someone just asked me if I have noticed any blocked websites, and I said no, but I learned last night that blogs are mostly blocked. So yes, I can post things to the blog, but I can't actually read the blog or see any of my own postings. People use proxy websites to view blocked sites, just like in Myanmar. Where there is a will, there is a way. People will always find a way to access blocked material.

Pollution is terrible in Beijing, despite government efforts to move factories out of the city, plant trees and clean up the air. Over 1,000 new cars hit the roads daily. When I landed a couple of days ago, the sky was so hazy that it was like I was looking through a screen, and it is that way almost everyday. Colors do not appear vibrant through the thick, polluted air. In preparation for the Olympics, when the government wants to allow only about half the cars on the road, they are holding a 4 day practice. Over the weekend, yesterday and today, on alternating days, only even or odd cars are allowed to drive. Those that disobey the rule faces penalties of 50RMB (about $7). When I looked at license plates of the cars on the road, they were indeed almost all odd or even (with the exception of taxis and buses).

Perhaps one of the funniest things I've heard of the government in China doing to prepare for the Olympics is to purchase a super advanced weather system from IBM. In an attempt to prevent it from raining during major outdoor Olympic events like the opening ceremony, they are hoping they can use their new weather system to detech rainclouds early enough to divert the rain using modern technology. I guess we will see whether they succeed at controlling the weather.

Rabies Vaccinations in Foreign Countries

After leaving Bangkok, I assumed it would be easy to get subsequent rabies post-exposure vaccinations in Taiwan. Afterall, it's a pretty developed country. It wasn't until I had already gone to the biggest hospital in the area and to the Public Health Center in Pingzhen City, talked to several doctors and nurses, and called the National Center for Disease Control in Taiwan and a travel medicine clinic in Taipei, that I learned: 1) rabies doesn't exist in Taiwan anymore; 2) almost no one even knows how you can get a rabies vaccine in Taiwan (because it doesn't exist anymore); and 3) there is only one hospital where you can get it in all of Northern Taiwan and that is only after registering with the government. What I thought would be a quick trip to a local hospital like the one in Bangkok (I was in and out in about an hour) took literally the whole day yesterday. Who would have guessed that Taiwan would be one of a handful of countries that doesn't have rabies? At least I know where to go for the 3rd vaccine this Friday. In all, I've visited 5 different hospitals in 3 different countries already in the past week. Hopefully, it will be easy to figure out where to get the 4th and last vaccine when I get to Beijing next week. Luckily, rabies is still a problem in China. I think I am going to avoid monkeys for a very long time. No more petting random cats or dogs either, no matter how cute.

Ironically, it was a good thing the monkey bite left a nasty-looking bruise and mark on my shoulder, since no one actually believes it when I first explain to them why I was looking for the rabies vaccine in the first place. In hindsight, the whole experience is sort of funny and it'll definitely make for some funny stories later but figuring out how to navigate foreign health care systems and prevent rabies has been stressful to say the least.